Facing AIDS for World AIDS Day 2009: How You Can Take Action with One Photo

By Jennie Anderson and Josie Halpern-Finnerty

Tree Alexander at USCA

If a picture says a thousand words, how much would a picture of you wearing a red ribbon and holding a sign that says you're "Facing AIDS for World AIDS Day" say? Could it help end stigma? Promote HIV testing? We think so - and we need your help.

Last week at the U.S. Conference on AIDS, we kicked off the relaunch of our Facing AIDS for World AIDS Day campaign. Hundreds of you stopped by our photo booth and told us why you are Facing AIDS. In doing so, you are helping to reduce stigma around HIV by putting real faces to the people who care about responding to HIV, and by helping to promote HIV testing. We first launched this campaign last year for the 20th World AIDS Day and given how many of you responded, we're doing it again this year and taking it to the next level.

Highlights from the 2009 U.S. Conference on AIDS

By Miguel Gomez, Jennie Anderson, Josie Halpern-Finnerty, and Michelle Samplin-Salgado

We just got back from the United States Conference on AIDS (USCA) , sponsored by the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) , and are feeling very energized. There were several themes and key messages that we took away from the conference. The opening plenary, “Transgender People and HIV: Our Time Has Come!” emphasized the importance of better understanding our audiences, specifically the transgender community. We also continued to hear that we need to improve our capacity and reach. And this year there was a new emerging theme - that of new media’s role in the response to HIV. Case in point - at last year’s USCA in Florida, we had seven people attend our new media workshops. This year we had over 150 participants!

JoAnne Keatley , UCSF Center of Excellence for Transgender HIV Prevention delivers the opening plenary remarks at USCA

Making Choices: Create Once, Repurpose Often (Part III)

By David Galiel, AIDS.gov Advisor

In this new media strategy series, I explore ways to develop an effective new media plan that considers available resources, integrates existing services, and uses the right tools for the job. Part I of this series discussed identifying audiences and needs. Part II discussed using an appropriate technology approach to select your new media tools.

Part III: Create Once, Repurpose Often

New media allows us to repurpose existing content, make it available in different forms, and reach our audiences through multiple channels. We can summarize a webinar as a blog post, make it available in an RSS feed or email feed , cross-post it to our Facebook and MySpace pages, and Tweet about it. The slide presentation can be uploaded to SlideShare . We can record the webinar and make it available as a streaming audio or downloadable audio file, along with a text transcript of the webinar. We can read a blog post about the event aloud and include it in a podcast feed . There is a wealth of opportunities to repurpose content created from a single event, potentially reaching a wider audience than we would through one channel.

New Media Institutes, Usability Testing, A Photo Booth, and More: Preview of AIDS.gov's Activities at the U.S. Conference on AIDS

By Jennie Anderson

What do new media institutes, usability, and a BIG RED photo booth have in common?

They are some of activities we're planning for later this month at the U.S. Conference on AIDS (USCA) . This annual conference, hosted by the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) , will take place October 29-31st in San Francisco and will bring together public health experts, people living with HIV, government employees, activists, and community leaders from across the country (and a few from around the world!). We're so grateful to the organizers of USCA — they've put together a packed agenda for the conference, and we look forward to taking part.

Today is National Latino AIDS Awareness Day

By Daniella Rivera, AIDS.gov Fellow

James Albino, Office of National AIDS Policy

Today is National Latino AIDS Awareness Day (NLAAD) . Earlier this week we shared some of the ways that people are using new media to get the word out about NLAAD. Here's an update on just a few of this week's many NLAAD activities.

The Latino Commission on AIDS (the lead organization for the day) and its partners sponsored a Congressional Briefing yesterday on Capitol Hill that brought together the voices of key leaders who are addressing the disproportionate impact of the epidemic in Hispanic/Latino communities nationwide. The Office of National AIDS Policy was invited to be a part of a wide array of speakers at this session on Capitol Hill. Here’s a short audio clip I recorded, (transcript also available - PDF, 21 KB) in which James Albino, Senior Program Manager, recapped the key messages offered during the briefing by Jeffrey Crowley, Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy.